Comments regarding Publishers Clearing House

Posted on April 12, 2010, updated February 20, 2012
Today received 3 purple persuasion hedge roses..They were placed in a bag & then boxed..The roots were amazingly moist & looked very healthy, on 2 of the plants it looked as they were breaking dormancy as tiny buds were appearing...I planted them today & will update as the growing season goes on..The pics. of these roses looked beautiful but can't find much info. whatsover on this type of hedge rose..The planting guide that was enclosed was informative & pic. of roses were in color...Time will tell!!

Either this company has gotten better over the years or I just had a very lucky experience with them last year. Although all was not perfect...

Anyway, I've filled out their sweepstakes entires off and on for years, but until last year I had never ordered flowers from them. Well, last year I realized my gardens weren't looking so well, so I decided to fill them in/up. I like to have stuff that will come up year after year...

So, last year as I was filling out their sweepstakes entries I actually looked at their stamp sheets and saw that they sold plants. I ended up ordering four times. The first was a plant with a purple flower. Yes, I bought based on color, nothing else. ;)

Anyway, I planted it and within a week there were already green twigs coming up and within a month I saw the first flower. This despite the fact that I put the plant on my porch in mostly shade when it was supposed to get more sun, and I suspect I overwatered it just a tad as well. So I would say this is an awesome plant and now that I've learned the proper planting and care for it I suspect it will be even more impressive this year.

The rest of my order was for fall planting: I first got two bulbs - they came in looking dried out, and the roots appeared to have been chopped off, so I wasn't hopeful they they were alive, or if they were that they would survive the root mangling. Still I planted and watered them as per instructions and even now in the middle of winter they have already multiplied (there are at least two new shoots of green on each plant), so I expect they will do even better when warm weather arrivies.

The next three "bulbs" (they looked more like roots than bulbs, but I believe they are actually bulbs) came in looking very healthy - they almost looked like they'd been pulled out of the ground and shipped directly to me. So I planted them, and while I can't say for sure how they're doing because the cold weather did kill the green on these I can say that before it got cold I could clearly see that they had taken root, so I fully expect them to come up as soon as warm weather returns.

The last order is where there were some problems, but I did eventually get the bulbs even if it was too late for conventional planting by the time they arrived.

I decided to be creative and plant them inside first to (hopefully) trick them into believing that I planted them on time, then after a couple weeks (maybe more) I'm planning to move them outside while it is still cold(ish). Hopefully by doing this I can get them to bloom mostly on time...

The reason I'm hopeful is because the bulbs are very big and very healthy looking. But I am aware that my method may fail and that I probably should have sent them back and tried to get a refund, but I really wanted them, and I'm hopeful that even if they don't do well this year that maybe by next year they'll be okay.

The other downside is plants ordered from PCH aren't exactly cheap, but from my experience they are worth a few extra dollars.